


baby, it’s cold outside

by glundergun (cleardishwashers)



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:19:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21989395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cleardishwashers/pseuds/glundergun
Summary: it’s the most cliche title for a fic involving snow BUT it’s my fic i get to choose the music. anyways. this is just mac and dennis fucking about in the snow. enjoy.
Relationships: Mac McDonald/Dennis Reynolds
Comments: 6
Kudos: 66





	baby, it’s cold outside

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skiesbelow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skiesbelow/gifts).



The blizzard is unexpected.

One day, the skies are clear, and the next, Dennis has to dig his car out from a mountain of snow. “Dude,” Mac whines, “we’re not even going anywhere today, what’s the point of getting the car out?”

“Because of this little thing called  _ work?” _ Dennis says, even though there’s two and a half feet of snow on the ground.

“There’s two and a half feet of snow on the ground!” Mac exclaims. Dennis narrows his eyes at him— sometimes he forgets how much time he spends around Mac until something like this happens. “Why’re you looking at me like that? Do I have something on my face?”

“Other than the snow, no.” White flecks dust Mac’s hair and lashes and sweatshirt— “Aren’t you cold?” Dennis asks, suddenly realizing that Mac is standing there in nothing but Dennis’s old UPenn hoodie

(and these are the moments where tiny little realizations sneak up on Dennis, where he realizes that  _ yes, _ he really has been living with Mac for two decades, he really has made his own life for himself, he really  _ has _ survived)

and a ratty pair of sweatpants. “How are you not cold?”

“I’m just not, man. Like, on account of how I’m so ripped and all, my heart is pumping blood really easily, so I’m warm.”

“That makes no sense,” Dennis says, tracking the way the snowflakes spiral down and come to rest gently on Mac’s broad shoulders. He looks almost like he’s old, what with the white in his hair and his beard and his eyebrows. “How does your heart beating easily correlate with being warm?”

“‘Cause— look, if my heart is super strong and all, then it’s— okay, we can just google it later.”

“Yeah. Okay. Well, I still think you’re an idiot for not wearing, like, an actual jacket.”

“I just told you, I’m not cold, man!”

“It doesn’t matter. I mean, I’m assuming that we’re going to dick around in the snow for a while, yes?”

“Duh.”

“Well, you’re gonna get sick and then you’re gonna infect me.”

“I’m not gonna infect jack shit, man. I’m fine.”

“You’re most definitely gonna get sick—”

“I will not!”

“And when you do, I’m not gonna take care of you—”

(and here is his second little realization of the day: he  _ would _ take care of Mac, or at least, he’d try; Mac is never the one to get sick— and that probably says something about the merits of working out, or even just eating on a normal schedule— but Dennis has held back his sister’s hair more than enough times, and there have been a few memorable occasions where Mac was the one to get hammered and Dennis was the one who had to buy more Advil, and it really can’t be that much different, can it?)

“I’m not gonna get sick, though, that’s the thing,” Mac says. “My immune system is just superior.”

“Oh,  _ your immune system— _ whatever. This is all bullshit. Go get a jacket.”

And of course, Mac doesn’t ever listen to what’s good for him, so— “You were the one who was harping on about me making my own choices, therefore I say  _ no.” _

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

_ “This _ is the thing you choose to be a stubborn jackass about.”

Mac crosses his arms and lifts his chin. “Yep.” Goddamn him, using the high-neck trick.

“This is bullshit, man.”

_ “Yep.” _

Dennis glares at him, and then—

“What the  _ fuck, _ man?!” Mac yelps as Dennis stuffs a handful of snow down the back of the stupid Penn hoodie.

“Get a goddamn jacket, dude!”

“I’m not—”

“You really gonna say you’re not cold?”

“I’m obviously cold  _ now, _ seeing as you just—” Mac’s eyes narrow minutely, and Dennis realizes what’s about to happen a split second before it occurs. He tries to jump to the side, but Mac grabs his collar with one hand and scoops up a fistful of snow with the other and jams the icy cold wetness into his jacket. The packed flakes draw a bitterly frigid path down his back. “Ha!” Mac cackles.

“Fuck you!” Dennis exclaims, worming free of Mac’s grip and forming a snowball with his bare hands. He stuffs the snowball down the front of Mac’s hoodie, because for all his supposed strength, Mac has never been fast. Mac grits his teeth and groans, and then he flings back a snowball of his own, and then Dennis tackles him into a powdery drift, and they are  _ close. _ The type of close that Dennis has just kept discouraging over the past few years, the type of close that used to make his heart pump twice as fast, the type of close that he never thought he’d feel again.

Mac and his tousled hair and flushed cheeks and pink lips are so,  _ so _ close, and there is snow making its way down Dennis’s back that sends a glacial chill through him that is immediately countered by the sheer  _ warmth _ of Mac’s body.

(Here are the three little realizations that Dennis is struck with:)

(One: Mac really must not be cold, seeing as he’s putting out body heat like he’s a fucking radiator)

(Two: Dennis hasn’t been this close to Mac since they were in college and they’d fall asleep on top of each other all the time, before Dennis got withdrawn and Mac got paranoid)

(Three: Mac looks fucking  _ pretty _ with the snow in his hair, and the tip of his nose is pink, and—)

(Here is the one enormous realization that Dennis is clocked over the head with:)

(He wants to kiss Mac, and not because it’s been a while since he’s gotten laid and not because he’s drunk, simply because Mac looks like that and smiles like  _ that _ and Dennis really cannot think through his usual protocols when he’s being frozen and practically burned at the same time and  _ fuck it, _ he may have survived this long but maybe, just maybe, he hasn’t  _ lived) _

He leans forward— and it’s really no distance at all, he just lets his head fall forward a little— and then he and Mac are kissing.  _ Kissing, _ like they’re fourteen-year-old kids again, like they’re fourteen-year-old kids who have no business being around as many drugs as they were, like they’re twenty-two-year-old kids who just bought a bar and didn’t know what the fuck they were doing, like they’re thirty-year-old guys who have never left their transitional phase, like they’re forty-three-year-old men who have spent nearly three decades in each others’ orbits and are only just now letting gravity pull them as intended.

Mac pulls back, and Dennis silently laments the loss of contact. “Wh— dude, are you drunk?”

“No,” Dennis says. Some strange emotion is bubbling up inside him, filling all the nooks and crannies of his hollowed-out soul.

“High?”

“No.”

“Both?”

“Neither, asshole!”

“Then why— why this? Why  _ now?” _ Mac asks, suspicion written in the lines of his face.

He makes no move to push Dennis away, and Dennis makes no move to get up. “I don’t  _ know, _ okay? But— I mean— we could at least  _ try _ this.”

“I’m not opposed to that,” Mac says, the words leaving his mouth in a rush, “but I just— I don’t want you to hate me later.”

He thinks back to when they lived in the suburbs, remembers screaming  _ “Because I HATE you,” _ and he wonders why Mac never believed it, when Mac believed all his other lies. “I’m not going to. I mean— I might say it, but I’ll never mean it.”

Mac’s narrowed eyes slowly relax, and then Mac leans forward and for a second Dennis thinks he’ll get to kiss Mac again and then—

“Oh, fuck  _ off!” _ Dennis cries as Mac shoves even more snow down his back. He jumps up and tries to shake it out of his clothes, and Mac is cackling like he’s some sort of evil genius, and suddenly he realizes that _ he _ has the keys to the apartment. “Y’know what, asshole?” Dennis smirks, walking backwards towards the warmth of the building. “Have fun being locked out of the house.”

Mac’s smug grin slides off his face. “Oh, you can’t be serious.”

“Oh, but I  _ can.” _

“Dennis!”

“Bye!” Dennis calls, pushing open the door to the lobby. “Shitass.”

(Mac catches up to Dennis on the landing and kisses him until he agrees to let him in anyways.)


End file.
